I had a demonstration to put on at a local trade show, and I had recently installed SQL Server 2005 on my demo laptop. The demo involved the LogiXML Info product which uses the Northwind database.

Imagine my surprise to not find it anywhere. So, I just copied the scripts from a SQL 2000 version over and installed it by running the scripts. The original scripts required a few changes, but I had no trouble setting up Northwind and getting my demos to run against it.

I thought it was an oversight that Northwind and Pubs were not included. I didn't think anything more of it until I saw Brian Noyes' blog this moring. According to Brian (see his discussion here at .NET Ramblings) Microsoft intended to ship SQL 2005 without them, but that may have changed.